Consumer demands are evolving quickly, and many marketers are turning to insights-driven marketing to stay ahead. This technique provides a new way for marketers to utilize insights from data analysis, collected through consumer interactions, to drive business performance, and optimize their overall digital marketing efforts.
According to the Altimeter’s 2019 State of Digital Marketing report, many businesses are aiming to improve their data-driven marketing - 41% of companies report data analysis as the most-desired skill for new digital marketing hires.
It’s clear why so many businesses are looking to leverage insights-driven marketing. A survey by Forrester Consulting shows that nearly half of the respondents who use marketing intelligence experienced improved customer satisfaction, and almost as many saw enhanced customer loyalty and retention.
However, insights-driven marketing isn’t possible without having useful data. Marketers need to first understand their existing data, the data they can get, and how to organize, analyze, and apply such insights to improve their marketing efforts.
Prepare data for insights-driven marketing
Your data must be clean and organized, yes, but marketers also need to look to more complex data sources, which go beyond consumer contact information.
It’s crucial to look for detailed customer information, such as demographics, education, interests, lifestyle, social profiles, and professional experience. Complete data files can help marketers improve their marketing strategy and curate engaging content.
Marketers can consolidate consumer data by adding a robust data management platform (DMP) to their marketing technology toolkit. A DMP is a central platform where marketers can collect, organize, and activate first, second, and third-party audience data from any source, including online, offline, and mobile.
Lotame, Clearbit, and Oracle Data Cloud are examples of data management platforms marketers can use to implement insights-driven marketing. Once marketers have harnessed data collection and preparation, there are numerous opportunities for them to utilize insights-driven marketing.
Improve the customer experience
Research from PwC reports that excellent customer experience can result in up to a 16% premium on products and services, plus increased loyalty. And by 2020, Walker predicts that customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator.
Data-driven marketing is an excellent way to improve the customer experience. For example, marketers can use data to distribute ads and marketing campaigns across channels effectively. Instead of guessing during media planning and buying, marketers can leverage data to produce targeted marketing campaigns which are consistent and aligned with consumers.
Data-driven campaigns help marketers analyze their customers, and identify any areas of improvement to enhance customer experience.
Create personalized marketing messages
More than ever, customers expect brands to understand their needs on an individual level. By leveraging consumer data, marketers can create effective campaigns with highly personalized messaging to target specific customers.
For example, marketers can use data to group desired target audiences in an email campaign. In addition to automating emails, data enables them to easily personalize messages to connect, one-on-one, with each customer, instead of sending a one-size-fits-all message.
McKinsey & Company found that personalized marketing can boost total sales by 15-20%, and digital sales even more, while significantly improving the ROI on marketing spend across marketing channels.
Advance product development
Developing a new product can be challenging, especially for brands that don’t have a good understanding of their customers’ needs. Products often fail when the consumer isn’t the core focus, however, insights-driven marketing can vastly improve product development.
Equipped with actionable information about their customers, marketers can better understand their target audiences and help brands develop products that are a better fit for the specific market.
Although failure rates for products tend to be high, a data-driven approach can significantly reduce a product’s chances of failing.
Improve sales funnel efficiency
A high-converting sales funnel requires the right content, at the right time, to lead prospective customers through each step of the buying journey. Insights-driven marketing can help marketers optimize their sales funnel and increase conversions.
Armed with data, marketers can identify which specific pieces of content are moving prospects through the sales funnel and optimize their campaigns accordingly.
By gaining a better understanding of their target audience, and optimizing the sales funnel, marketers can increase both their conversion rates and ROI.
Leveraging insights-driven marketing as a competitive advantage
Today’s marketers have access to more data than ever, and insights-driven marketing provides a way for marketers to use this insight to improve their overall digital marketing efforts.
But before they can implement this strategy, marketers must first ensure that their data is ready for the job.
With detailed and organized data, marketers can leverage insights-driven marketing to keep up with consumer expectations, and differentiate their brand against the competition.